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New South Wales (NSW) Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has invited the largest ever Japanese travel trade delegation to visit Vivid Sydney 2018 in a bid to build on the record number of tourists who took part in this year’s festival.

Japan is the 6th largest market for international visitors to the state. In the year ending in March 2017, NSW welcomed 165,000 Japanese visitors who stayed 3.1 million nights & contributed an estimated AUD$339 million to the NSW visitor economy.

Ms Berejiklian made the announcement in Tokyo overnight at the global launch of the Vivid Sydney 2018 dates.

“We are seeing a resurgence of Japanese visitors to our shores & we want to see that grow even further” Ms Berejiklian said.

“Not only is this great for forging closer ties with Japan but more tourists coming to NSW is vitally important for our local economy”

Ms Berejiklian announced that the NSW Government’s tourism & major events agency, Destination NSW, had invited a record 50 Japanese travel agents & wholesalers to experience Vivid Sydney 2018.

“This will be the largest ever Japanese travel trade delegation to be invited to come & experience Vivid Sydney first hand & then return home to sell Vivid Sydney packages for 2019” the Premier said.

In 2017, 5,062 Vivid Sydney packages were sold to visitors from Japan, up from 4,710 packages in 2016 (a 7.5% increase).

Ms Berejiklian revealed a record 2.33 million people attended this year’s Vivid festival.

Vivid Sydney 2017 attracted 247,712 national & international visitors, an increase of around 35% on 2016. These visitors stayed a total of 804,399 nights (up 30%) & contributed over AUD$143 million (up 30%) to the NSW economy.